Today, individuals frequently use digital media applications to create and edit content, produce artwork and visual designs, generate user interface designs (UX) and web documents, and otherwise author work product. In connection with content creation, users may employ various tools provided by the digital media applications design to facilitate the creation process. For example, a toolbar or menu of available operations may be exposed in connection with a digital illustration or graphics editing program. Options made available via such programs may include various tools operable to draw shapes, lines, and arcs.
In conventional approaches, different operations are associated with separate tools that do not integrate well with each other. For example, separate selectable icons as part of modern iconography, menu items, or other controls may be provided for drawing a line, drawing an arc, creating a rectangle, and so forth. In this approach, the user has to manually operate different controls to switch back and forth between operations in order to form a path having different types of segments, e.g., curved and arc, which may make it especially difficult when later trying to edit these different types of segments. This takes additional time and distracts the user from creation of the project.
Additionally, conventional techniques used to form arcs may also present additional challenges to users when forming arcs. Conventional arc tools define curved paths using Bezier curves. However, conventional arc tools define these Bezier curves as standalone segments in which each segment is defined independently along a path. This makes it difficult for a user to draw regular arc segments that fit in with the rest of a path. This is especially difficult when the path is curved due to lack of synchronization of transitions between curved segments in the path in conventional techniques. In another conventional example, conventional pen tools are used to draw arcs through precise location of control points responsive to user inputs, which may be difficult for an end-user to perform. Further, conventional pen tools do not preserve the arc properties when the path is edited. Thus, any later attempt by the user to edit this arc is not able to leverage this definition as an arc. Accordingly, connection of arcs with other shapes in conventional techniques is difficult using existing tools and does not integrate well between different types of shapes and tools. Consequently, the process of creating complex shapes having arcs is manually intensive and implemented through a disconnected user experience.